Stefan Nieheus, the fine sculptor behind Masq Minis, has a YouTube channel with some awesome videos and video tutorials. I'm always amazed at what some people can do at this scale. I love working in putty, but it's dang hard...

Stefan Nieheus, the fine sculptor behind Masq Minis, has a YouTube channel with some awesome videos and video tutorials. I'm always amazed at what some people can do at this scale. I love working in putty, but it's dang hard...

I love tools. I spent the first two years after I started sculpting buying up just about every sculpting tool I could find, as well as looking in dollar stores, hardware stores, automotive stores, and just about anywhere else for items that could be used as sculpting tools.

It wasn’t until I bought some hand-made tools from other sculptors that I actually built up the courage to try my hand at making tools, though. The idea of making tools seemed so intimidating. In hindsight, that was downright silly. Making tools is fun and rewarding. In fact, I’ve reached a point where probably 90% of the tools I use regularly are handmade. I have a couple of dental tools that I rely on heavily and for specific jobs now and then I will pull out a clay shaper or a Kemper tool or some other store-bought item, but easily 90% or more of my sculpting time now is spent with a homemade tool in my hand.

Here is my work area right now; as you can see, the bulk of my tools are handmade, not store bought.

I thought it might be worth a post to talk a little about tool making. There are a great many approaches to toolmaking, but it seems that most hand-made sculpting tools are made out of metal and/or wood. My woodworking skills do not go much beyond assembling a Pinewood Derby car, but I’ve gotten to be a fair hand at making metal tools, so that’s what I’ll talk about. Maybe Noadi will grace us with a tutorial on how to make wooden tools sometime.

On Purchasing Tools

When you’re first starting out, it’s not a bad idea to buy some handmade tools from experienced sculptors. They’re more expensive than those mass-produced tools you can get at Michaels or Hobby Lobby, but generally are worth it. I own tools made by Philippe Faraut, Wayne Hansen, Sandra Garrity, and Gene Van Horne. I’ve also been eyeing Noadi’s nifty little wooden tool. Having tools made by experienced sculptors will give you a good starting point and they generally will be sturdier than mass produced ones.

For mass-produced sculpting tools, I’ve had excellent luck with Kemper tools, and have heard good things about Glyptic tools, though the idea of having to change loops seems like it might interfere with the flow of your sculpting session. I have not been impressed with the nigh-ubiquitous Loew-Cornell sculpting loops and rakes that you can find in just about any hobby store in the country, especially the metal-handled ones, several of which have broken on me. Regardless of quality, however, for the most part, mass-manufactured tools simply don’t come small enough for doing good detail work.

I have also heard good things about Perfect Touch sculpting tools so if you’re really opposed to rolling up your sleeves and making some tools, check them out, but otherwise, let’s talk about making tools because you know you should, right?

Other Resources

Katherine Dewey’s excellent sculpting book has a lot of information on making tools. Sculptor Dan Perez has a good tool-making tutorial on his website, and there’s an epic thread over at ConceptArt on making sculpture tools. I advise reading all three of these to get different perspectives and to see some different approaches.

Raw Material

As I said earlier, there are many materials out of which you can make sculpting tools. I make the vast majority of mine out of metal. I started out using brass because it is soft and can be worked without heat or a grindstone. But that softness is also a detriment when you’re making very small tools, so I now make the vast majority of my tools out of hardened spring steel.

Music Wire from Small Parts, Inc.

There are many sources of hardened spring steel, but I generally start with piano wire, also sometimes called “music wire” or “strengthened spring steel”. You can buy piano wire from Small Parts and it’s also available in some hobby shops. Another good, cheap source for hardened spring metal is out in the street. No, I’m not kidding. Street sweeper brushes are made out of high-grade spring metal and they come off regularly as the sweeper does its job, so keep an eye out while walking near roads, especially in a city, and you’ll likely also come across the occasional wire bristle; they're about eight inches long and a quarter of an inch wide. They’ll be dirty and corroded, but they clean up great and they’re top quality string steel. Another interesting bit of trivia: those street sweeper bristles also can be used to make lockpicks. Not that I should have reason to know that, or anything.

Anyway, if you're going to order music wire, it can be a little daunting: the stuff comes in increments of a hundredth of an inch. I generally buy .020", .032", .047", and .078", and .093" because those are the most common sizes, and the ones that come in smaller lengths. If you want other sizes, like .023", you have to order five foot long wires. The .020" wire is great for making small loops and micro-spoons, the .032 is good for larger loops and small tools, the larger sizes are good starting points for various small sculpting tools.

One of the few purchased tools that I use regularly is this dental wax carver known as a "Zahle", it is nearly identical to a popular tool in the mini sculpting world called the Wax #5 made by Tiranti and currently designated the "SG Dental" in their catalogs.

I will also sometimes buy cheap metal tools to use as a starting point, mostly using them for the metal. One of my favorite sculpting tools in the world is one particular variety of Zahle dental wax carver, but the spatula is too large for a lot of the work I do, so I've actually bought several of these and have ground them down to a smaller size.

On the right, you can see the spoon end of the Zahle Wax Carver. On the left is one that I have modified with a grinding stone to work better for detail work.

Handles

Your tools need to have a handle, and there are many options for this. Many sculptor use wooden dowels that they drill a small hole in and then stick the shaped metal into. You can also use old toothbrush handles, or the handles from other discarded plastic tools. Another option is to use polymer clay to shape a handle around the music wire and then bake it. This method gives you a lot of freedom to create a tool with a handle to your liking. The last, and probably the easiest option is to simply pick up some brass tubing. You can insert the music wire into the smallest brass tube into which it will fit, and then crimp the brass tube around the wire with a crimping tool or ordinary pliers and you're done. If you want the handle a little bigger, before crimping, slip the next size brass tube over the first tube and you have a thicker handle. This last technique is the one I always use for creating loop and rake tools and is, in fact the technique I use the vast majority of the time because I like thin-handled tools. You should experiment and figure out what you like in a tool and customize to make yourself happy.

Here are three different types of handles for homemade tools. The leftmost tools use wooden handles, the middle tools use brass tubes, and the right-most tools have handles made of polymer clay. Don't feel limited to these three, though.

Making Loop Tools

In order to make loop tools, you'll need a few things. You'll need the raw materials mentioned already (the hardened steel and something to make a handle with). In order to make loop and rake tools, you'll need something to bend the music wire. Music wire is called "hardened steel" for a reason: it is very hard. The .020" and .032" can be bent with a sturdy set of pliers, but it can be difficult to get a precise, clean bend. You can use a vise along with pliers, or you can buy something called a wire bending jig which will help you make precise bends. There are also some kinds of metal forming pliers that can be helpful in shaping the wire the way you want it.

Another option is to make a template that you can wrap the wire around. An easy example of this is to stick a drill bit into a vise, wrap the music wire around the bit and insert the ends into a drill. Twist the ends together in the drill until the wire has formed a tight circle around the drill bit. I've had the best luck using this option with round templates, but other people have reported success using triangular templates and even more complex shapes. I often don't twist the ends together, either. Doing so tends to make it a little easier to insert the loop into the handle, but provides few other benefits.

Here is an image I borrowed from the ConceptArt tool-making thread, showing how to use a template form to make a loop tool. I have not personally had luck with shapes other than circular with this technique, but as you can see from the picture, others have. This picture comes from ConceptArt user rschrader.

How you secure the loop into the handle is going to depend on the type of handle you choose to sue. For brass tubing, simply crimp the soft brass down on the music wire with a crimping tool or pliers. If you're not able to get it secure enough, you can use some epoxy to secure it. Epoxy putty or glue tend to be the best choice for securing the loop in plastic or wood.

Loop tools are a great first choice for tool making, because they are easy and they are a main staple of most sculptors. I probably spend more time with loop and rake tools than any other type of tool with the possible exception of spoon tools. Once you've successfully made a few loop tools and have exhausted your need for new ones, we can move on to grinding and shaping the metal to just the shape you want to broaden the types of tools you can create.

Making Tools by Metal Working

Let me just start out by saying that I have no background in metal working and what I've learned, I've learned by experimentation, so I could very well be giving you some bad advice here. If there are any metalsmiths out there who want to correct anything here, I will gladly incorporate your advice into the article. That being said, I've had good luck using tools made with the techniques described here.

To start out, you need something to grind metal with. I use two separate things: a desktop grinder and a Dremel with a grindstone bit.

Here is an inexpensive desktop grinder that I use for rough shaping.

The desktop grinder is completely optional; it just makes things go faster in some cases. Often, for smaller tools, I don't use it at all, and I always switch to the Dremel for the fine work because I just can't see well enough with the desktop grinder to do the really fine shaping. If you do decide to get a desktop grinder, they usually come with a course and a medium grindstone. Make sure you buy a fine stone for toolmaking.

Dremel with a grinding stone attached. Any model rotary tool will work fine, although I particularly like the shape of the Dremel Stylus for this kind of work.

When it comes to buying a grinding stone for your rotary tool, you may find it a little overwhelming. They come in all shapes and sizes, and at least three different materials each with a different color. Grinding stones can be made from Silicon Carbide, which are usually green and Aluminum Oxide which come in pink and orange. Now, even though the pink and the orange are both made of Aluminum Oxide, there is a huge difference between them. The pink are made of unfused aluminum oxide granules and are rather soft; the orange are made of fused crystalline silica, which is very hard. Therefore, you want the orange Aluminum Oxide grinding stones such as the Dremel 932 - the other two are too soft to effectively grind hardened steel and are designed primarily for deburring not grinding. You should pick a cylindrical shape grinding wheel to start with, though you might choose to supplement with other shapes later.

Many rotary tools come with a starting set of bits, and many include an appropriate grinding wheel, but if yours didn't, you should be able to pick one up for under five dollars at any hardware store or hobby store.

Now, if you're going to be making very small tools, another optional but highly recommended item is a pair of magnifying glasses or optivisors. You want the tool to be free from burrs, jagged edges, and imperfections, and it's going to be hard to see those with the naked eye, no matter how good your vision is. I use an Optivisor brand with a #5 and a #10 lens.

An optional tool, I personally find my Opti-visors to be indispensable for both sculpting and tool-making.

If you're going to be grinding metal, you also need a glass or bucket of water. Grinding is friction and friction generates heat. If you let the metal get too hot, it can cause problems, including weakening the metal and making it brittle and useless to use as a sculpting tool. If you see the metal start to change color while you're grinding, you're letting it get too hot. Periodically dipping the metal into water will keep the temperature down. The thinner the metal you are grinding, the more often you will have to dip it to keep it from overheating.

A glass of water can keep your hard work from becoming molten slag or useless, brittle junk steel.

It's difficult to explain how to grind the metal other than to say you press the metal against the spinning wheel. Beyond that, you need to learn by doing, so your best bet is to grab some scrap metal and just start playing. Oh, and make sure you wear safety glasses. Take some time and just work for a while so you get a feel for how fast your stone grinds, how quickly the metal gets hot, and how you can get the shapes you want. Grinding metal is almost another form of sculpting.

Grinding music wire with the desktop grinder. Make sure you wear safety glasses - those sparks are superheated bits of music wire that can really ruin your day. Don't expect the spark guard to stop them all.

Here I am grinding the music wire with a grinding stone on a Dremel. Notice the discoloration of the metal? Yeah, that's bad. It took me longer than expected to snap the picture, and the metal got too hot. Also notice that I'm using one hand to hold the dremel and the music wire. Don't do that. I just needed the other hand to take the picture.

In addition to grinding the metal into a specific shape, you may also want to bend the metal at times and you'll be tempted to grab a wire jig or pliers and just yank it into the shape you want. With the smaller gauge wire, this is fine, but with the larger gauge wire (.048" and up) it can be a bad idea. You can stress the metal this way, weakening it and causing surface imperfections that make it difficult to get a smooth surface on your tool. A good sculpting tool has a very smooth finish.

So, how do we bend the metal into different shapes? We heat it.

But didn't I say heat was bad? Yep, it is. Overheating is bad. But heating the metal up also softens it and allows it to be bent without stressing it. If you overheat it, you will make it brittle, but if you do it right, you will be able to shape the metal without stressing the metal.

I generally use a propane torch, although a small butane torch is capable of producing enough heat to do the job also. Now, remember, steel conducts heat very well, so use pliers to hold the metal, or wear welding gloves. You can get a nasty burn off of metal that's been heated either from using a torch or from grinding with a stone so be careful! If you place the metal so that the flame is heating the spot where you want to bend it, it will soon start to glow orange. As soon as it does, use pliers to bend it to the shape you want, and then plunk the hot metal into your water. It will make a satisfying little hiss and then you can take it out and inspect your work. If you did it right, your metal will now be cold, hard, and the shape you want with a nice smooth surface.

Finishing Work

I'm going to assume that you've now ground and shape the metal into the tool you want, but what you've got in your hands doesn't look like those shiny metal tools you buy. Well, yeah, that's because you're not done yet. You need to deburr and polish your metal. This can be a moderately time-consuming process, but it's vital to making a good tool.

I usually start with a steel wire brush attachment on my dremel, and run it over the metal - but being careful not to push hard, just letting the wire brush glide loosely over the surface. Running it over the surface should remove some of the burrs as well as any remaining surface corrosion. Gently rub it over the working surface of the tool, and please keep your safety glasses on, those little pieces of metal have to go somewhere, and it's best if "somewhere" is not your eyes.

After a quick working over with the wire-bristle attachment, it's time to buff and polish the tool's surface. For this I use nail files - the kind that manicurists use. I'm not particularly attached to a particular brand but you want a nail file that's got at least four different grits from rough to very smooth. You can find these in the beauty section of any pharmacy or department store.

A selection of nail files from the beauty section of the drug store. You're looking for ones that have at least four different grits, including at least one called "buff" or "polish".

Now, just start working your tools with the nail files. Start with the roughest grit on the file you have, and work to the finest. I generally work toward the edge or point both because it's safer and also because that's the best for removing burrs that tend to occur there. I try to work in the same direction the entire time, although some odd tool shapes make this impractical. You'll know it's time to move to the next finer section of the nail file when the surface of the tool is uniform in appearance. Use a magnifier when determining if it's uniform otherwise you may not be able to see the differences between the surface created by different sanding grits, especially if you're using more than four different grits.

Once you're done, your tool should shine and have a glass-smooth finish. At that point, you're done. Go try it out on some clay.

Well, I owe some of you an armature tutorial. This is a long-standing obligation from shortly after I created the armature stand tutorial ( video | print ). Unfortunately, a video tutorial will have to wait, but I hope that today's posting will help some people. It's a step-by-step building of an armature, one that can use the stand I showed you how to build in my first tutorial.

This is a warts-and-all blog posting- you're going to see my mistakes along the way, which might actually be more beneficial than if I were to clean it up and make it look like I know what the heck I'm doing. I want to warn you, if you're new to sculpting and are looking for the One Right Way™ to do the armature, that there is no such thing. I have never created an armature exactly like the one I'm building today, and may not ever create another one just like it. Feel free to take ideas from this, but don't get it in your head that this is the best or the only way of doing it. It is one way, nothing more.

In my mind, there are only two rules to building armatures:

1. The armature materials you select must support the weight of the medium sufficiently given the pose
2. The materials you select must be able to safely withstand whatever they will be subjected to. For example, don't select a material with a low melting point or one that releases noxious fumes when heated if you're going to be baking it.

That's it - the only rules. Everything else is just a suggestion.

BTW: Most of the images in this posting can be clicked on to see a larger version

The Concept

I'm doing a comic book character, which is something I've only done once before, and it's a character that I actually never really liked all that much, X-23 from Marvel.

X-23 image ©Marvel, courtesy of Wikipedia

Note:X-23 is a fictional character owned by Marvel. I'm making no claim to the character, and have no intention of selling or otherwise infringing on their rights. I'm simply creating a piece of fan art that will sit on a shelf in my house when completed, something that falls well within the realm of "fair use" in US Copyright Law.

Now, I haven't really read comics in almost twenty years, but when I did, X-Men was one of my favorites, and I always really liked Wolverine. In the twenty years since I stopped following the X-Men, it seems that Wolverine's popularity has grown quite a lot. To capitalize on that popularity, Marvel at some point created a character who was a clone of Wolvie... a clone who also happened to be a hot chick. The idea seemed rather silly to me and I had no use for it.

Well, I recently had an opportunity to read X-23: Innocence Lost which tells the origins of the character. Talk about having my mind changed for me! It's seriously good stuff - they took a corny idea and made it not only seem feasible, they made it work well. This is the kind of comic that makes me consider reading comics regularly again. If you haven't read it, go pick it up in paperback form, it's well worth your time.

So, anyway, I've seen a lot of people do the hot-ass late-teen-or-early-twenties version of X-23. However, the cold-blooded barely-post-pubescent killing machine that we saw in Innocence Lost is the one I want to try and sculpt. So, I photocopied and enlarged a few of the better frames from Innocence Lost, and did a quick armature map of the character. She's just over six heads tall (although that shifts a bit throughout the book), and is fairly realistically proportioned except that her head and facial features are a little bit caricatured and somewhat bigger than a real adolescents would be. She's got the body of an elite gymnast or dancer - thin and muscular. She's going to be a challenge, but a fun one, I think.

I decided to work in twelve inch scale, and figured that she'd be about nine inches tall based on my unscientific calculations. My armature map was drawn at twelve inches, because I did it before I thought about the fact that she wouldn't be as tall as an adult, so I photocopied it and reduced it down to the right size, then traced out lines where the wires of the armature would go in red. Please, no comments on the quality of the drawing, it was a quick sketch and, well, frankly I can't draw for crap, which is one of the reasons I sculpt.

Getting Started

I'm going to build a fairly standard three-wire armature. One wire will be the left arm, left leg, and left side of the torso. Another wire, a mirror image of that one, will be the right arm, right leg, and right side of the torso. A third wire will be for the head. I'm going to incorporate a 1/4" #20 t-nut into the armature so that it can be supported by the support stand. I do this as a general practice; it doesn't hurt anything to have the t-nut in the armature if you don't use the stand, but if halfway through sculpting the piece, you realize you need more support, it's a lot harder if you didn't build the t-nut into the armature at the start.

a 1/4" t-nut

Because this is going to be a thin character, I needed to select an armature wire that was thin enough that it wouldn't show through at the ankles or wrists. I don't mess around with grounding wire, fencing wire, or other types of general-purpose wire, even though there are several kinds that are serviceable as armature wire: I buy actual armature wire. It's relatively inexpensive if you buy it on larger spools. For this particular sculpture, I chose a 16 gauge aluminum alloy wire.

The armature wire I'm using

Most of the time, I will double up the wire on the lower part of the armature and twist it together with a drill (you can see an example of making legs out of twisted wire in the larger armature I built a few months back here, although that one has telescoping arms done with several wires). This means that the twisted wire through the legs would be twice as thick as the single wire in the arms. This makes sense - the bones of the lower body are weight-bearing and proportionally larger than the bones of the arms, so doubling the wire from the waist down is often a good idea since it allows a single gauge wire to be used for the whole piece while still giving you the ability to have larger and stronger wire where it needs to bear more weight.

For this particular piece, I was worried about those damn thin adolescent ankles, so I'm leaving the wire as a single-strand and not twisting it for the legs. I'm going to embed that t-nut into the armature, so if the 16 gauge wire isn't strong enough to support the clay on its own, I can stick it on the armature stand to give it more support.

Measuring Up

Now, I unspool some wire and line it up with the armature map. This will allow me to measure out the approximate amount I need for the left-side wire. I always leave a fair amount extra below the feet; I can snip it off later if I don't need it. I then do the same thing for the right-side wire, but I don't worry about the head wire for now.

using the armature map to measure the wire

Next on my agenda is to join the left and right side wires, but when I do that, I want to embed that 1/4" t-nut into the torso at the same time. In order to incorporate the t-nut, I find it useful to flatten those sharp points down. A pair of needle-nose pliers does the job easily and quickly. With sixteen gauge wire, you could simply choose to leave them as they are—the wire will fit between the sharp parts—but I prefer to flatten them and reduce my chances of injuring myself. The process I use is to grip the piece to be flattened in the very tip of the needle nose pliers and use leverage to bend them down as far as I can.

flattening the sharp points on the t-nut

Then, place the mostly-flattened piece into the flat part of the pliers, and clamp down.

finishing the job

Joining the Body Wires

Now it's time to put the t-nut and the two body-wires together. I first use the armature map to determine where to locate the t-nut between the wires, choosing a spot where I know the t-nut will fit, and where it will provide good support. I chose a spot a little above the navel. To join the wires and t-nut, I generally use a fast-setting plumbing epoxy like FastSteel. You don't need to use this particular brand, but I've had good luck with it. It cures in five minutes rock hard. To use it, you simply slice some off, mix it thoroughly, then squish it into place with your fingers. Then go wash your hands; it's kinda nasty stuff.

FastSteel putty is great for building armatures

I line up the two body wires around the t-nut, and use some mixed FastSteel to secure the wires around the t-nut.

the wires and t-nut connected by the putty

I always find that during this process, I get the wires pretty bent out of shape. Fortunately, armature wire can be bent many times without risk of breaking, so I simply line everything back up with my armature map before proceeding.

lining everything back up

Next, I take a sharpie, and I mark some key points - the elbows, the knees, and the bottom of the feet. Sharpies are supposed to be permanent, but on aluminum wire, I don't find that to be the case, so mark well, and then try to avoid rubbing those spots. After marking, you can brush a little super glue over the marking to make them more resistant to getting rubbed off.

marking some points of articulation

Attaching the Head Wire

I used to try and get the head wire into the epoxy putty when I was joining the two body wires. More often than not, I would screw it up trying to keep all three wires and the t-nut positioned while the putty cured (having only two hands is sometimes so inconvenient), so I no longer even attempt to get them all joined the same time - I ignore the head wire until the putty that joins the two body wires and the t-nut has completely cured. Then I drill a very small hole in the cured putty - I use the small drill bit that came with my Dremel to do it.

drilling a hold for the head wire

Next, I cut another piece of sixteen gauge armature wire, making sure it's long enough to reach from the t-nut to the top of the head on the armature map. When in doubt, go long, because it's easy to cut long wire, but it's awfully hard to stretch short wire out. I insert this cut piece into the hole I just drilled. It's a little wobbly - no worries, we'll secure it in a minute.

Wrapping the Torso

Before we secure the wire, we have to insert something else in this hole - another, smaller piece of wire. The three pieces of aluminum alloy wire that have already been cut is all the armature wire that we're going to use. We will, however, be using some floral wire - the kind you can get at any craft store - to wrap the armature wire. We do this to accomplish two things. First, it helps secure the existing wires. Second, it gives the clay more surface area to hold onto.

good old floral wire

For this part, I'm using 28-gauge floral wire. Why? Because that's the one I grabbed. There aren't any rules about this, just pick the wire that seems right, or the best one you've got in your inventory. It's trial and error, and you'll develop a feel for what gauge to use. I actually decided after this step that 28 gauge was too thin and switched to 24 gauge. But the 28 is functioning fine, so I'm not going to bother re-doing this step.

the floral wire inserted into the hole along with the head wire

Once the floral wire is inserted into the hole, I'm going to wrap. First, I start by wrapping all three pieces of armature wire together, but when I reach a point about halfway up to the where the arm wire bend, I'm going to switch to wrapping only the two wires of the torso, and not include the wire of the head in the wrap any more. The reason for this is simple - it's a more accurate representation of human anatomy. The vertebrae do not come up from the body perfectly straight, they jut forward at an angle. Additionally, the scapula and shoulders have a relatively large range of motion and can be considerably further back than the spine in many poses. By wrapping the wires this way, I can have the head at the proper angle and also will be able to put the shoulders into more realistic positions.

wrapping first all three wires, then just the two torso wires

Now, to secure this wire in place, I'm going to use super glue. Okay, technically, it's Krazy Glue™, but I've always called any liquid capable of securely and inconveniently attaching my forefinger to my thumb or another body part "super glue" and I'm not likely to change now.

this doesn't really need a caption, does it?

For this job, I like the brush-on kind of super glue. I'm just going to lather the stuff over the wire wrapping job I just did, and make sure some gets down into the hole I drilled. Once this dries, those three wires should be nice and secure. If they're not, you can mix up a little more putty and shove that into the hole, but for me, the super glue has worked just fine and secured everything nicely.

Forming the Core of the Head

Next, I take some needle-nose pliers, the round kind sometimes called "ring bending" pliers of just "ring benders", and bend the head wire down to form a little ball to form the base upon which the head will be built.

Wrapping the Legs

Now, I'm going to wire wrap the two legs. This is a very similar process to wire-wrapping the torso above. I'm going to drill a tiny hold in the putty between the spots where the leg wires emerge, insert the end of a length of 24 gauge floral wire into it, then wrap it down one leg wire, then I will repeat the process with the other leg. I'll stop wrapping when I reach the mark I made for the bottom of the foot because the wrapped wire will interfere with inserting the wires into the wooden base later.

drilling another hole

floral wire wrapped down one leg

Once both legs are wrapped, I whip out the brushable super glue again, and lather down the wire wrapping job, making sure I get plenty in that hole I drilled, then I let it dry for a minute or two.

brush the wire wrapping with super glue again

Wrapping the Arms

Now, I just need to wire wrap the arms, so I take another piece of floral wire, and stick it down between the wires that are already wrapped around the torso.

sticking the floral wire down into the torso wires

Once I've done that, I bend the wire and start wrapping the arm, just like I did with the legs.

wrapping the arm

Once you've got both arms wrapped, it'll look something like this:

And, of course, just like with the legs, lather it down with some super glue and let it dry. I then trim the floral wire down to the length of the arm.

Attaching it to the Working Base

We are getting there. Almost done. Really. Next thing I do is to cut a small piece of wood to act as our base. I could have chosen to attach the armature right to the sculpting stand we created earlier, but I like to give the armature its own base. I figure out where I want the feet to be positioned, then drill two small holes in those spots. I'm going for a classic Wolverine pose with feet just a little more than shoulder width apart, so I drill two small holes at the appropriate locations. I want the wire to just barely it through the holes, so err on the side of drilling too small of a hole, then gradually widening until the wire can be inserted, but is still snug.

I now run the wires through the holes. I push the wire right down to the line I marked for the feet. I could also leave a little space below that line for a base. I'm going to push right to the line - if I sculpt a base, I will do it later after at least one bake.

You can attach the wires to the base using more epoxy putty, or with screws if you want. What I'm going to do is cut a groove with my dremel for the wire, then wrap it back up around the wood so that it holds it secure, but can be undone later.

And, She's Done

And here's what my final armature looks like.

You can see the wires I wrapped up from below on the base behind the armature. I anticipate taking the armature off this piece of wood later and sculpting an actual base for it, so I want the extra wire, and don't want to attach it permanently if I can get away with it. With larger or bulkier pieces, you may find you have no choice but to affix the wires to the base more permanently and leave room for the sculpted base right from the start.

Here's a picture to show it on the support. I was worried about the thin gauge wire, but honestly, I think this is going to work fine even without the back support, but it's nice to know I can add the back support if I need to later.

This armature is missing one thing, however. Did anyone spot it? It's specific to this character, not something you'd do with most armatures. Yep, the blades coming out of her arms. Frankly, I haven't figured out how I'm going to do them yet. I'll do a post when I figure out how I'm going to make those darn blades.

Some day, I'd really like to write a book on sculpting. I'm nowhere near good enough of a sculptor to do so yet, but in the course of the last few years, I have done a lot of research and asked a lot of questions about the technology and craft of sculpting. I've worked with just about every medium I've been able to find, have ready everything I could get my hands on about sculpting techniques and tools, and I participate in numerous web forums and mailing lists regularly.

As a result, I've accumulated a fair amount of knowledge about sculpting, and I do feel comfortable sharing that, so I've put together a little PDF that provides an overview of the different sculpting media that I've worked with and read about. It is my hope that it will be helpful to new sculptors, as the sheer variety of sculpting media can be pretty scary to the newcomer.

This version is pretty bare-bones, with no fancy formatting or pictures. I do plan to add those, but my main reason for releasing this at this time is so that people can read it over and let me know what I've missed, what I've forgotten, and (most importantly) what I've gotten wrong. So, without further ado, you can find the link here: Sculpting Media.pdf.

Feedback, suggestions, corrections, and the like can be sent to me.